GM's $1 Billion Spring Hill Retool Builds the First US Line for a Cheaper EV Battery Chemistry
Original illustration created for Southeast Industrial and Manufacturing News & Events.
GM's $1 Billion Spring Hill Retool Builds the First US Line for a Cheaper EV Battery Chemistry
Ultium Cells will spend another $1 billion retooling its Spring Hill, Tennessee battery plant to mass-produce a new cathode chemistry the joint venture says no other facility in the world is running at scale, Governor Bill Lee and Commissioner Stuart McWhorter announced on September 29, according to the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. The work will raise the plant's headcount from 1,200 to 1,700, Motor Illustrated reported the same day.
What's going into the lines
The retooled lines will produce prismatic lithium manganese-rich, or LMR, cells — a chemistry TNECD says delivers 33% greater energy density than lithium iron phosphate at a comparable cost. Facility modifications begin in late 2026 and are scheduled to finish in 2028, per the same TNECD release.
The cathode itself is unusual for how little of the expensive stuff it contains. WPLN said GM intends to use the cells in full-size trucks and SUVs to push range past 400 miles at lower production cost.
Kurt Kelty, GM's vice president of battery and sustainability, told WPLN the chemistry will let the company "leapfrog today's more affordable chemistries." GM CFO Paul Jacobson, cited by Motor Illustrated on September 29, said LMR's lower costs would produce a "stark improvement" in the range and value of GM-built electric vehicles. GM spokesperson Stu Fowle confirmed the Spring Hill line will be the first to manufacture LMR technology at scale, per the same Motor Illustrated report.
A plant that already runs three chemistries
Spring Hill is not starting from a blank floor. East Asia Brief's September 30 report describes the site as already producing NCMA pouch cells and shipping LFP pouch cells since June 2026 to LG Energy Solution's Vertech energy storage line. The LMR line is a fourth chemistry layered onto a plant that has spent five years adding capability rather than replacing it.
That matters for the Cadillac assembly operation next door. The Nashville Business Journal reported September 30 that Spring Hill's battery plant currently ships cells to the nearby GM vehicle plant building the Cadillac Lyriq and Cadillac Vistiq. A multi-chemistry battery campus sitting beside a single-platform assembly plant means GM can shift which cell chemistry feeds which vehicle program without relocating capital — a flexibility that tier-one suppliers sized to one chemistry do not have.
The money, in sequence
Tennessee Town & City reported September 30 that the original 2021 pledge was $2.3 billion and 1,300 jobs, followed by a $275 million, 400-job expansion in 2022, with this latest $1 billion round on top. Added together, those three figures total $3.575 billion. The Nashville Business Journal, reporting the same day, put cumulative Ultium investment in the region at "over $3.6 billion" — a figure that does not reconcile against the itemized rounds in the public record and may be counting spending the September coverage does not itemize.
Ultium Cells President Injae Pahk called the new round the venture's "second major investment" in Spring Hill, according to Nashville Post's September 29 report, even though it is the third capital commitment tied to the site since 2021. Pahk's phrasing suggests the 2022 expansion is not being counted among the "major" rounds; nothing in the available reporting states that explicitly.
The same Nashville Post report noted the announcement follows a period in late 2025 when GM temporarily laid off 700 employees at the plant, a detail none of the September announcements mention and one worth tracking against the 500-job hiring figure now being promoted. Nashville Post did not specify which month the layoffs occurred or whether the 700 workers have since been recalled.
Governor Lee, in the TNECD release, pointed to the state's workforce as the reason Ultium keeps returning to Tennessee rather than siting new capacity elsewhere. Neither the TNECD release nor the trade coverage that followed it details clawback terms tied to the new $1 billion, a gap worth watching given the layoff history at the same facility less than a year earlier.
Where the manganese comes from
Enki AI, an AI-generated industry brief, reported on July 28 that GM struck a February 2026 partnership with Element 25 for U.S.-based manganese processing, alongside a May 2025 joint development agreement with LG Energy Solution specifically for LMR technology. No other report in this file corroborates the Element 25 arrangement, and GM has had a manganese relationship with Element 25 dating back several years; whether the February 2026 item is a new agreement or a restatement of prior terms is not established here. Treat it as a single-source claim pending confirmation from GM or Element 25 directly.
What it means down the supply chain
Suppliers already qualified against NCMA or LFP chemistries at Spring Hill are not automatically qualified against LMR, which runs a different manganese-to-nickel ratio and, per East Asia Brief, a different cobalt profile entirely. Plants in Tennessee and Kentucky feeding cathode precursor, separator film or pack-level components into the Spring Hill line should expect a requalification cycle running alongside the 2026-2028 retool window — the same window TNECD lists for the facility modifications themselves.
The 1,200-to-1,700 hiring figure, confirmed independently by Motor Illustrated and by Metaintro's September 30 report, gives a rough sense of scale: roughly 42% growth in plant headcount tied to a single chemistry line, on a site that has now absorbed three separate capital rounds since 2021. No cathode, separator or pack supplier is named in the current reporting as having been contacted about LMR qualification, which is the next thing to confirm before bidding against Spring Hill's capacity additions.
Links Verified at Time of Publish.
Sources
This article was reported from the following sources.
- Ultium Cells to Invest Additional $1 Billion in Spring Hill — Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD), 2026-09-29
- GM's Plan for Cheaper EV Batteries Adds 500 Jobs in Tennessee — Motor Illustrated, 2026-09-29
- Ultium Cells' Spring Hill plant gets $1B boost to produce new type of battery — Nashville Business Journal, 2026-09-30
- Ultium Cells to build first prismatic LMR battery line in US — East Asia Brief, 2026-09-30
- GM plans to produce cheaper long-range EV batteries in Tennessee — WPLN News, 2026-10-07
- Ultium to invest additional $1B in Spring Hill plant — Nashville Post, 2026-09-29
- GM Electric Vehicles 2026, $625M Lithium Americas Deal — Enki AI, 2026-07-28
- Ultium Cells to retool Spring Hill facility, invest $1B — Tennessee Town & City, 2026-09-30
- GM and LG's Spring Hill Battery Plant Projects Growth From 1,200 to 1,700 Workers — Metaintro, 2026-09-30
